The difference is they told two different stories with both those franchises, one being an origin and the other not for each franchise. In this case we've got two origins. Not even Superman or Batman have had two origin stories on the silver screen (no, Burton's 89 Batman wasn't really an origin tale, though it did flashback to the Bruce's parents' murders).

There's rumor that the upcoming Man of Steel will be an origin tale. I'm really psyched about that one. It's produced by Nolan and written by Goyer and promises to be a much more kick-ass Superman than we've ever seen before.

Really, as far as theatrical Superhero movies, Spider-Man will be the first really successful property that has actually had his origin tale retold. Which thinking about it now is kind've a stunner given how many remakes we've seen over the past couple of decades.

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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... it's about getting out there and dancing in the rain.

We should create a loop. That way when he gets back he can feel jealous that he's been out of it.

i got really attached to the toby maguire spiderman. yes the 3rd movie was pathetic but i think they could've kept things rolling by moving on. I still don't understand why they felt they had to start over.

The problem is, people are interested in these superheroes as humans. That's really easy to do if you do the origin stories (they all...well, ALMOST all....start off as mere mortals). It's also easy to do if you make them whiney little....Anyway, it's hard to do after you establish them as bad-asses. You can either up the drama (Dark Knight), or you can weaken the hero (Spiderman II), or you can focus on WHY the heroes do as they do (Firefly, Dark Knight, and maybe a few others). So if you want to make a Spiderman movie, you can either take away Spidy's powers (again), or up the drama (again, which considering what they did last time would mean actually destroying the planet), or just start over. Let's face it, those writers aren't good enough to actually make Spidy realistic.

They are so busy wanting to shove different comic storylines into the movies that they become disjointed and uninteresting most of the time. A little message to them: they don't HAVE to remain so faithful to the storylines so long as they remain faithful to the CHARACTERS. I mean, they do shoddy job as it is trying to follow the plots (or at least half-ass the plots). Fans would be forgiving if they're given the characters they know and love... plus it'd be a helluvalot easier to write a damned movie.

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Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... it's about getting out there and dancing in the rain.

We should create a loop. That way when he gets back he can feel jealous that he's been out of it.

Is it even a good idea to be faithful to the story? I mean, that necessitates translating someone else's work into a new medium. It'd be much more effective to write a unique story about the character. And the fans will be much more forgiving--after all, that's what every new comic book essentially is anyway. Maybe it's cannon maybe not; either way, once you start writing new adventures for the superheroes you can escape the whole "true to the story" trap entirely, and focus on the characters.

As an aside, Deadpool would be FANTASTIC for this. Mostly because as long as the character was a snarky, loud-mouthed bad-ass with a few touches of humanity thrown in here and there you've more or less got his character. His first comic book started with him doing the naration--then mocking a mook for not understanding why he was talking to himself. He was once almost crushed to death by a giant teddy bear for talking too much! Marvel invented him as a way to deal with superfluous badguys too bizar and goofy for a real superhero to take out. He's MADE for cheesy hillarious popcorn flicks.